THE MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY

So my absolute first thought about Titus Andronicus (that's the band, Poindexter) wasn't actually a thought at all. About two minutes into The Monitor, I just busted a big crooked grin.

But gosh, didn't we do the “tramps like us” riffing with The Hold Steady already?

And much like The Hold Steady, I've yet to work out whether there's more than some decent words and Clash/Pogues/Replacements/blah blah blah going on here.

I'm encouraged that they at least seem to recognize the second civil war when they see it...

AMERICAN HOT WAX

Three key demographics (collectors/cranky old dudes who think “everything was better back then”/hipsters) collide to give us this-- the top 10 best-selling artists on vinyl in the US for 2009, sourced from Record Collector (total sales in parens):

(1) Radiohead (45,700)

(2) The Beatles (38,800)

(3) Michael Jackson (30,400)

(4) Metallica (30,200)

(5) Wilco (29,600)

(6) Bob Dylan (24,500)

(7) Animal Collective (20,600)

(8) Pearl Jam (19,900)

(9) Bon Iver (17,100)

(10) Iron & Wine (16,600)

A PLACE FOR YOU IN BETWEEN THE SHEETS

I'll always remember my MLB bed sheet. It was cheap and thin and I wore it through.

I would pull the covers up past my chin on autumn nights and see all the team names on the underside written in reverse. Some were just meaningless strings of backward letters, but others seemed to be secret messages, dyed in the low-thread-count cotton.

“Boston” was “not sob”-- a fair state of mind for any New England baseball fan at the time.

The “Astros” were “sortsa,” which was sorta “sorta.” Which was sorta how I felt about the team.

The “Yankees” were “seek nay.” A quest for negation. How appropriate.

And the Mets. The “Mets” were “stem.” Like an apple's umbilical connection to the tree.

Like goddam Eden before the fall...

SAY IT AIN'T SO

This is a story about Joe Jackson.

No, not the shoeless one. The chinless, Gumpish New Waver.

During his transition from Elvis Costello-manque Joe to easy-listening Joe, he released a song called Right and Wrong, which contained this unexpected lyric:

“So what you think,
You like the Yankees or the Mets this year?”

This seemed to be less voice-of-Joe and more man-on-the-street, kind of like Mark Knopfler's loathsome Money for Nothing.

It sure was a sop to 1986, and guaranteed some extra airplay on contemporary New York radio.

Savvy bastard...

THE GIANTS AND METS WILL PLAY

I love it when my twin obsessions intersect, all the more so when it happens unexpectedly.

I don't think it's any surprise when a Simon or a Fogerty or a Springsteen drops a baseball reference into a lyric. But when a Scottish pop band does it-- and with a startling level of specificity at that-- I tip my cap.

Piazza, New York Catcher is a fine piece of Belle & Sebastian, baseball content aside. But then it drops in details like Piazza's lifetime batting average at the time (.318), and a great play on words regarding the Giants' statue of Willie Mays: “The statue's crying too/And well he may”...

That's a doubleheader sweep right there.

TALKIN' BASEBALL

My twin obsession to music is baseball.

I am a Mets fan. Have been since I was 4. Given my essential melancholia, there was never any other choice.

Because I think I knew even then that being a Yankees fan means living a lie.

And it's the worst kind of lie, I'm afraid-- one that tells you that the only thing worth celebrating is championships.

Being a Mets fan means that you learn to savor your own little victories. You will bear a 66-96 season if Craig Swan leads the league in ERA.

You learn to elevate the mundane to ridiculous heights and savor it beyond all reasonable measure.

And this is a valuable skill for those who would dare to enjoy life...

O MY SOUL

“Who's Alex Chilton?”

Even a small measure of grief can make it hard sometimes to speak with the unaffected.

“Alex Chilton. Singer for Big Star.”

“Big Star?”

Some are older, some are younger, so it's not just a generational thing.

“Big Star. They were like The Raspberries with a chemical imbalance.”

“Who were The Raspberries?”

OK, fuck y'all. Alex Chilton died. In 1973, he made music that I cared about in 1993. He didn't do too much that registered with me after that. But 59 is too young.

And December boys still got it bad...

COUNTING YEARS

I didn't do anything more profound to celebrate my Irish heritage today than listen to If I Should Fall from Grace with God.

Come to think of it, I guess I did plenty...

TIME HAS COME TODAY

Nothing better illustrates what an abstract concept time is than trying to explain DST to a 7 year old.

“You can't just change time!” exclaimed Sebastian more than once, as the clocks conspired to steal from him an hour of sleep again...

THE M-Z

By popular demand, here is the rest of the alphabet in songs that share titles.

And the "Strange Bedfellows" award goes to... Bananarama and Television! Take a bow, boys and girls...

Maria, Blondie
Maria, Leonard Bernstein

Modern World, The Modern Lovers
Modern World, Wolf Parade

The New World, X
The New World, Damon & Naomi

Old Man, Love
Old Man, Neil Young

One of These Days, Camper Van Beethoven
One of These Days, The Velvet Underground

Polly, The Kinks
Polly, Nirvana

Shine a Light, Apples in Stereo
Shine a Light, The Rolling Stones
Shine a Light, Wolf Parade

Ship of Fools, John Cale
Ship of Fools, The Doors

Silver, Echo and the Bunnymen
Silver, Pixies

Sixteen, The Buzzcocks
Sixteen, Iggy Pop

Special, The Mekons
Special, New Order

Spoon, CAN
Spoon, Cibo Matto

Surrender, Cheap Trick
Surrender, Elvis Presley

Take It Or Leave It, The Rolling Stones
Take It Or Leave It, The Strokes

Temptation, Heaven 17
Temptation, New Order

These Days, Joy Division
These Days, R.E.M.

Tonight, Iggy Pop
Tonight, Marnie Nixon & Jim Bryant
Tonight, TV On the Radio

Underwear, The Magnetic Fields
Underwear, Pulp

Valentine, Liz Phair
Valentine, The Replacements

Venus, Bananarama
Venus, Television

Victoria, The Kinks
Victoria, Shane MacGowan & The Popes

THE WHITE STAR LINER SANK IN THE DOCKS

This is... well, I have no fucking idea what this is.

Near as I can tell, it was intended to be part of the "songs of celebrities" series, like Thomas Pynchon, Gedde Watanabe, and Russ Tamblyn. But the wheels came off before the first ellipsis:

"The thin-lipped spawn of Suzy Amis and Jim Cameron
Was sipping a Corona down by Venice Beach..."

YOU CAN CALL ME A-L

It's spring cleaning time, so I'm going to clear out a few abandoned posts this week.

The ambition behind the first one was to catalog all of the songs I have in iTunes that share a title but are discrete entities, ie, no covers. Then, I wanted to determine through a complex Olympic-style scoring system just which title was the best, overall.

Then about halfway through the exercise, I got tired. So here's the list up to the L's (and I'd say the early leaders were Come Together, Good Times, Heaven, and Let's Go Crazy-- Lust for Life could be a comer):

Airplane, The Beach Boys
Airplane, Pizzicato Five

All I Need, Air
All I Need, Radiohead

All I Want is You, John Cale
All I Want is You, U2

All My Friends, LCD Soundsystem
All My Friends, Pavement

Beautiful World, Devo
Beautiful World, 宇多田ヒカル

Blue Moon, Big Star
Blue Moon, Damon and Naomi

Candyman, Cornershop
Candyman, カヒミ・カリィ

Cars, Gary Numan
Cars, To Rococo Rot

Changes, David Bowie
Changes, The Zombies

Clouds, Cibo Matto
Clouds, The Go-Betweens

Come Together, The Beatles
Come Together, Spiritualized

Contact, Big Audio Dynamite
Contact, Stereolab

Cool, Russ Tamblyn and the Jets
Cool, The Simpsons
Cool, Superchunk

Don't Stop, Fleetwood Mac
Don't Stop, The Stone Roses

Dreams, Fleetwood Mac
Dreams, TV On The Radio

Electricity, The Avalanches
Electricity, OMD
Electricity, Spiritualized

Emily, Joanna Newsom
Emily, John Cale

The End, The Beatles
The End, The Doors

Eyes on the Prize, Bruce Springsteen
Eyes on the Prize, M. Ward

Flower, Liz Phair
Flower, Sonic Youth

Flowers, Cibo Matto
Flowers, Chug

The Fool, Camper Van Beethoven
The Fool, Neutral Milk Hotel

Glass, Gang of Four
Glass, Joy Division
Glass, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

Gloria, Laura Branigan
Gloria, Patti Smith

Go, Moby
Go, Tones On Tail

God Only Knows, Cornelius
God Only Knows, The Beach Boys

Gone For Good, Morphine
Gone For Good, The Shins

Good Times, Jim O'Rourke
Good Times, The Rolling Stones
Good Times, Chic

Grass, Animal Collective
Grass, Robert Wyatt
Grass, XTC

Halloween, Dream Syndicate
Halloween, Sonic Youth

Harvest Moon, Jason and the Scorchers
Harvest Moon, Neil Young

Heaven, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Heaven, Talking Heads

High and Dry, The Rolling Stones
High and Dry, Radiohead

I Believe, The Buzzcocks
I Believe, R.E.M.

I Don't Know, Chris Bell
I Don't Know, The Mekons
I Don't Know, The Replacements

I Should Have Known Better, The Beatles
I Should Have Known Better, Yo La Tengo

I Want You Back, Bananarama
I Want You Back, Hoodoo Gurus
I Want You Back, Jackson 5

Leave Me Alone, Altered Images
Leave Me Alone, New Order

Let's Dance, David Bowie
Let's Dance, The Ramones

Let's Go Crazy, The Clash
Let's Go Crazy, Prince

Liar, New Order
Liar, The Sex Pistols

Lies, The Knickerbockers
Lies, Thompson Twins

Little Bird, The Beach Boys
Little Bird, The White Stripes

Lust for Life, Girls
Lust for Life, Iggy Pop

SPARKLE AND FADE

MEOW MIX

And the difference between "Kissing cunt in Cannes" (Casino Boogie) and "I bet you keep your pussy clean" (Starfucker) is essentially the difference between Exile on Main St and Goat's Head Soup...

CAN OF TASTY FOAM

So, yeah-- “Star Fucker” (or, if you prefer, “Starfucker”; or, if you are prudish and prefer, “Star Star”).

It is really quite sad as it strains to offend.

The only saving grace is this, which sounds more like a cry for help than a cocksman's boast:

“Honey, I'm open to anything/I don't know where to draw the line...”

OK, OK, there are a few other saving graces:

-It's, um, catchy. However, you might not want to catch it, nor will you likely know what to do with it once caught.

-The sudden spasm of guitars in the last verse, which I assume are there to obscure John Wayne's name in the lyrics.

-And I swear that amidst all the “you're a star fucker”-ing Mick slips in an “I'm a star fucker” somewhere toward the end. Damn straight, you are...

WHEN WILL THOSE CLOUDS ALL DISAPPEAR?

I suppose that for the 70s Stones of the Month club to serve its educational purpose, I'm actually going to need to listen to the damn things.

I bought Goat's Head Soup last week, and tried one night to listen start to finish on my iPod.

But I was tired, and I fell asleep about halfway through. One minute Mick was whispering “Angie” and the next thing I knew he was bleating “Star fucker, star fucker, star fucker, star fucker, star.” Now I don't mean this priggishly, but that right there is not a pleasant way to wake up from a nap.

The weird thing about “Angie” the song is that there's another version floating spectrally right beneath the surface. This sounded intentional on the radio when I was 8, but now, listening through headphones, it's so pronounced that it seems like plain old sloppiness...